cheezepie

Hitting 10% body fat – Kettle bells, kettle bells and more kettle bells

Published on: January 19, 2012 Comments Off

My quest for fitness took a little diversion over the Christmas period. Looming deadlines, holiday shopping, end of year gatherings, traveling around, etc all added up to very little exercise in the weeks leading up to the holidays and over the holidays themselves.

Still, I managed to stick to my slow carb diet right up until Christmas week, when I unleashed and enjoyed all the sugary, dairy and carb filled foods of the season, so the damage hasn’t been too bad.

Now, it’s a new year and a new six week exercise plan has been started. This next six weeks is all about kettle bells. I’m still looking for the most effective workout routine, and having found kettle bell swings to be very productive, I thought this six week stint would be a good time to try some other kettle bell based moves out.

The weekly plan is simple, short and only three weeks in, I’m already feeling the benefits. It breaks down as follows:

• Monday – 200 crunches (can’t not do crunches) – Turkish get up (with a very light bell for now as I learn the movement which is harder than it looks) – kettle bell swings.
• Tuesday – 200 crunches – 20 press ups – 5k run
• Wednesday – 200 crunches – Turkish get up – kettle bell clean and press
• Thursday – 200 crunches – 20 press ups – 5k run
• Friday – 200 crunches – Turkish get up – kettle bell high pull

On the kettle bell days those swings, presses and pulls are all done with my heaviest bell (16kg) and are each done for a length of time dictated by rolling two dice and adding their values. The shortest time could be two minutes (1 and 1) and the longest time could be twelve minutes (6 and 6).

Whatever the length of time I try and do as many well formed sets of reps as possible, with rests where needed.

The idea is that by working for fixed but random lengths of time my workouts are varied over the weeks and hopefully there’ll be no plateaus in grains as I can up the weight / and number of reps per session.

Over time I should be able to do more reps with less rests in any given time frame. And the best part is that I’m not having to spend hours every day doing the workouts.

So far, my back and core are feeling stronger and my legs are feeling more powerful so it feels like it’s working well. We’ll see when the six weeks are up and my weight and body fat percentage numbers are in.

Fingers-crossed.

Dear cyclists of London

Published on: November 4, 2011 Comments Off

Dear cyclists of London,

I applaud your efforts. Riding in and amongst some of the busiest traffic in the country is a brave endeavour.

I salute your commitment to getting in some extra exercise, saving on your transport costs, reducing your carbon footprint, or whichever combination of these noble goals drove you to peddle our streets.

But, FFS get some lights if you intend to ride after it gets dark. One on the front as well as that little flashing red thing you wear on your back. I don’t care if it makes no difference to how well you can see, it makes all the difference to whether we pedestrians can see you coming.

Yours,

One “I’ve nearly been mown down by one too many of you light-less tw*ts” fellow Londoner.

PS, Here’s a handy link to a whole selection of bike lights that you can buy from Amazon. No excuses. Bike Lights at Amazon

Hitting 10% body fat – now with added burn

Published on: October 19, 2011 Comments Off

A few weeks ago I posted an update on my progress stating that I planned to take a week off to rest then crack on with another six weeks of the same workout routine but with the addition of some sprint training on a Wednesday.

The routine had been to do light weights and a 5km run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and spend Tuesdays and Thursdays sessions doing heavy weights.

I’m now in week two of the current six week period and I’ve not done any of that. Instead over my rest week I decided to try to get more running into the mix and focus on endurance rather than strength in this period.

So, my weekly routine now involves: Mondays and Fridays: doing a set of 200 crunches and 15 pressups followed by a 5km run. Tuesdays and Thursdays: doing a set of 200 crunches and 15 pressups followed by a 5km interval run. Wednesdays: a rest day.

Last week I just ran 5km on the four running nights to get back into running after a week off, so yesterday was my first go at the interval running. Wow. Did that burn.

I did a 1km warn up jog and then did a 250m sprint, 250m jog, 250m sprint, 250m jog over the second and third km. Then jogged the fourth km and repeated the 250m sprint / jog / sprint / jog for the fifth km.

Ideally I’d like to be doing 1km warm up, 3km of 250m sprint / jog intervals and a final 1km of warming down, but last night my lungs were burning so much after the third km that I swapped the fourth and fifth km around.

I’m hoping that tomorrow I can follow the 1-3-1km pattern. I’m not sure if the intervals will improve my overall 5km time (they certainly didn’t last night) but I do think they will improve my sprint times and help reduce my recovery time.

If you only watch one rugby match of this year’s World Cup watch this one

Published on: October 4, 2011 3 Comments »

If you follow World rugby you’ll have been following along with all the fun and drama of the pool stages in this year’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

But with all the games being played in the wee hours of the morning UK time if you’re more of a casual fan you may have shown no more than a passing interest, keeping up to date with developments on the pitch via online match reports or TV highlights. Or, thanks to a select few England players, you may have been more interested in the off the pitch activity than the games themselves.

That’s all about to change. This Saturday at 06:00 UK time Wales will take on Ireland in the first of the quarter finals of this year’s competition. If you are a hardcore rugby fan you will understand that with both Wales and Ireland playing some amazing, on-form rugby at the moment, this single game is certainly the most exciting prospect of the competition so far, and could prove to be one of the most epic games in the sport’s history.

If you’re not a hard core rugby fan, if you’ve only showed passing interest in the sport or the competition up until now, this is the game that will engage you, delight you and convert you.

This is the game to get everyone you know up early to watch. Don’t set Sky plus, don’t wait for the highlights, don’t miss the live broadcast.

This game will set the benchmark for the rest of the World Cup. If I was a betting man, I’d put good money on the winner of this match making the final.

I’m hoping it will be Wales. I’m confident that Wales have the skill, the depth in numbers and the belief to win. I’m also aware that Ireland have beaten Australia, won their pool and have the experience that Wales is lacking with their young team.

As a Wales fan, I’ve no doubt that Wales can win. But if Ireland take the game and knock Wales out of the competition, I’ll support them in the next round, the final, and hope to see them lift the Webb Ellis Cup. It would be a grand farewell for Ireland’s great elder statesmen of rugby.

But for now: COME ON WALES!

Hitting 10% body fat – Getting back on track

Published on: October 3, 2011 Comments Off

In my last update about my ongoing quest to hit 10% body fat by the time I turn 30 it had all gone wrong. I’d started out well but had then taken ill and been bed bound for the best part of 4 days.

After that set back and once I was feeling better, I gave myself about another 4-5 days off to fully recover and then kicked off another 6 weeks of what I referred to as my “burn workout plan”.

Quick weights; core, chest, back, arms, shoulders followed by a 5km run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, mixed with a heavy chest and back weights session on Tuesdays and an arm and legs session on Thursdays.

I’ve just finished that six weeks and things have gone pretty well. I started the six weeks with my body fat percentage at 22.1% and finished with a reading of 20.3% (using my new scales, after the old ones that gave lower readings stopped working).

My weight has gone from 98kg down to 94.1kg which I’m not so happy about (remember I’m not looking to loose weight, just fat) but it’s too bad.

But over the six week period both readings have fluctuated up and down a fair bit. I’m not sure why that’s been the case. The trend is still in the right direction but it’s not been a steady decline.

While the body fat percentage and weight readings are good, but not spectacular, the area I am blown away by is my running. When I first started running my 5km route at the beginning of August I was happy to finish in under 29 minutes. Over the past six weeks I’ve been able to bring my 5km time down to consistently under 26 and a half minutes and I’ve broken the 26 minute mark twice now to bring my PB to 25:57.

I had planned on doing sprint training instead of the 5km run on a Wednesday, but opted to stick with the distance running as I was enjoying it so much.

This week is now a rest week, I’m relaxing the diet to allow carbs and I’ll not be doing any proper exercise (I may do a couple of light 3km runs just to keep my legs going, but won’t be pushing it too much). Then next Monday I’ll start my next six week diet and exercise stint. This time I’ll be doing the sprint work on a Wednesday in the hope it will improve my distance time even further and also help in the fat burning stakes too.